


Gone

by Rachel24601



Series: What Doesn't Kill You [2]
Category: Prison Break
Genre: Anger, Character Death, F/M, Falling In Love, Grief/Mourning, Memories, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 08:31:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18028331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rachel24601/pseuds/Rachel24601
Summary: Michael's thoughts and feelings as he learns that Sara is dead in season 3.





	Gone

Blood.

The blood, beating at Michael’s temples as Lincoln closes his eyes, and opens his mouth. The words come out –

_She’s dead, Michael._

– but all Michael hears is his own pulse, the flow of blood rushing to his saturated brain.

“I wanted to tell you –”

“Shut up.”

“They still have LJ, Mike. If you don’t do as they ask –”

 _Shut up_.

Michael wants to scream, to throw himself against the gate and claw at it, like some animal at the zoo. No point, suddenly, in being human, in showing human reactions.

But the world about him is all too overwhelming. The heat of Panama wraps him in its drowsy hold. On his forehead, beads of sweat are drawing patterns through the layer of dust coating his skin.

The sight of his pleading brother on the other side of that gate fuels the firepit in Michael’s stomach, the rage is wild, unreasonable, and the young man turns suddenly around. Doesn’t care that Lincoln is crying for him to come back, to listen.

All that matters to Michael right now is that Lincoln was free to go as he wanted, to look for Sara all over Panama before it was too late, while he himself was in here, locked in this hellhole. It doesn’t make much sense to hate Lincoln for this but what’s ever made sense about hate?

It comes, thick and boiling through Michael’s veins, towering terrifyingly above all Michael feels has made him who he is – kindness, compassion. No.

None of that, anymore.

It crawls in, like serpents, eating their way through the young man’s body. They want –

( _blood_ )

Michael is barely standing on his feet.

The world around him is sucking in his oxygen, whirling, and he’s on his knees by the time he makes it to his cell.

Not that people here would notice. This place, Michael believes, has seen more people crawling than any other in the world.

Alone, Michael finds balance against the wall, realizes how his lungs feel crushed and throws his shirt over his head. Then, half-naked, he presses his sleek forehead to his knees, and he lets them in – a gentle welcome.

 _Yes, come in, come in._ Like a mother answering its baby spiders. _I want you I want you I want you._ They come in waves, and Michael is swallowed whole, the memories eating him up, his cannibalistic children.

The soft feel of Sara’s jawline against his palm when he asked her ( _cowardly, unthinking_ ), “Wait for me.” He didn’t know what he was going to say until he heard the word cross his lips. Not every choice matters in making the life you lead, but Michael thinks this was one of the choices that did.

And he didn’t think of it as a choice, not until a long time – he realizes – not until now.

It crosses his mind, he could have let his brother go on with the escape plan without him. That would have seemed ridiculous, at the time, but it doesn’t now, as Michael’s head beats steadily against his joint knees.

The dirt on the wall clings to his bare back, which still wears the patterns of his first genius escape – what good is it, he wonders, to be good at running, at saving your own skin? It strikes him, suddenly, as the sickest talent.

He could be in Fox River, right now. Seeing Sara for his daily shot of insulin.

(He would have had to tell her about not being a diabetic eventually, but not while he was still in prison, not when they were his tickets into the infirmary.)

“Hello, Michael,” he could hear her saying softly. Not looking at him – more often than not, looking anywhere _but_ him, her brown eyes focused on the plastic gloves she was slapping on or the needle or the tiny square of tattooed sink on his forearm where she stuck him.

It had a very dignified quality, the way Sara Tancredi _wouldn’t_ look at you. Not like a frightened girl shying away from you.

No.

Just like there were plenty of other things to look at, to pay attention to. Like she’d seen hundreds of men like you before.

Michael remembers the gut-clenching charm of her raw cynicism, the way her eyes occasionally crossed his, crying out their unbelief. _You won’t change me_ , those eyes seemed to scream, or rather whisper, too weary for screaming.

And yet, picturing the startled smile on her lips as she discovered his birthday gift – his love for Sara is just _like_ that gift, immortal roses, cold and paper-made, dead and undying.

It flashes through Michael’s mind that it was all worth it, breaking his brother out of prison, just for meeting her – just for putting that single smile on her lips.

Then, he realizes if he’d never met Sara Tancredi, she would still have her old life, she would still be _alive_ , and with his body showing no resistance, he breaks down in tears.

The wails slipping from his mouth strike him with how _inhuman_ they sound. Around Michael, the world is black – his eyes are closed, pressed against his knees – and in his mind, he sees wolves crying alone in the night.

“Oh God.” Are the only words he can recognize, coming back over and over, as he thinks of the fragile look in Sara’s eyes when she let him kiss him, on that train to Chicago – he’d never seen so much of strength and vulnerability in a single human being before. _Oh God oh God_.

Going to Sona was supposed to be his way to save her.

 _You’ve given up everything for me before. Now, it’s my turn. Time for me to say thank you_.

Time passes, leaving Michael unaware, unaffected. When an occasional inmate swings by to ask him what’s his deal – pester him, like children throwing rocks at a snake through the bars of its cage – Michael lifts up his face and hisses at them, until they’re gone, until around him is an invisible circle that cuts him out from the rest of the world.

Slowly, very slowly, Michael’s head grows cooler.

Not to say that the burning fire in his stomach quiets down, but he becomes able to think past it, to think _through_ it, and it comes to him that he’s not going to die.

Not for a longer while.

He must keep his nephew safe, but this isn’t the only reason – the _real_ reason.

“I’m going to get them.” He says to himself; the words are muffled as he speaks into his own flesh. His arms are laced around his knees, and his mouth is pressed against his palm, locked in a tight fist. “I’ll get them, Sara. If I have to butcher the whole world.”

But the first person he knows he’ll butcher in the process is himself –

The man he was, before any of this started. Before Fox River.

That saying about not being able to take the con out of the man.

Maybe Michael could have stayed true to his principles, valuing human life, always, even over vengeance, if it had stopped there – if it had just been his father and Veronica, and all the suffering he and his brother went through to survive.

But not like this.

Not with _her_.

“ _Sara_.”

The word feels hot into his mouth. In his head, the memories are still flashing – he remembers her charming detachment as she told him, “Let me tell you one thing, Michael, the words _trust me_ mean absolutely nothing between these walls.”

Michael opens his eyes. Night has fallen and he feels invisible, huddled against the wall, the warmth of his own breath against his skin recalling at least his body to life.

“Forgive me,” he whispers.

Then, he gets on his feet. Michael’s mourning will be underwater, calm on the surface, but cold and deadly. It’ll be like living with a new being inside his head – that monster made of fire that begs for justice – and every decision Michael will make, from now on, will be guided by that new voice.

Mahone crosses his path as Michael makes his way through the darkness, dark maze-like paths he finds his way in like a natural. “Michael, are you –”

“Stop talking. I’m fine.”

He is.

At last, Michael is ready to start thinking again – thinking about breaking himself out of here, playing the company’s game. Thinking about _the plan_.

His bloody plans.

They might have gotten Sara killed, but he’ll make damned sure that they’ll avenge her. If it kills him.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I realize this piece is very dark. To be fair, the series “What Doesn’t Kill You” was created specifically for dark moments in the lives of the Prison Break characters. It just feels to me we never accessed Michael’s feelings in the show when he found out about Sara’s death, so I wanted to add this missing piece in case anyone felt the same way. Please let me know what you think about it, and be sure to tell me if there’s something in particular you’d like to see in this series.


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